1. Field of the Related Art
The present disclosure relates to purchasing systems, and more particularly, but not exclusively, to expedited purchasing systems positioned on or about a point-of-sale (POS) express checkout lane at a grocery store or retail establishment or combination thereof, and activated by the proximity of a transponder for checkout and payment without the need for cash, credit cards, debit cards, and/or checks at the POS express checkout lane.
2. Description of the Related Art
The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Grocery stores and retail establishments are trying to become more efficient by applying different and innovative operating methods that help to increase their business's financial condition. One of the constantly pursued goals is the reduction of a customer's waiting time in a checkout line. Being able to speed up the flow of customers through a checkout station, or to reduce cost of a checkout transaction, is critical to the success of a grocery store and/or retail business.
Today, bar code readers are commonly used in commercial and retail environments. In a retail checkout transaction, the consumer presents all the items the consumer wishes to purchase to the cashier at a checkout register. The cashier scans each item in the order in which it is presented to him/her. The transaction is completed once all the items have been scanned, all the coupons have been accepted, the total costs have been calculated, and the consumer has paid for the items. The sequential presentation to a cashier of each individual purchase still takes a long time and creates long lines for customers waiting to pay for their purchases. This may cause bottlenecks at the checkout stations, reduce throughput, make customers unhappy, and affect the financial condition of a retail establishment and/or grocery store.
Self-service checkout or “self-checkout” is another way of conducting a checkout transaction and is a rapidly growing application in the retail and grocery store environments. In a self-checkout system, each customer, rather than the cashier, scans the bar codes on the items the customer is purchasing. However, such self-checkout systems also cause bottlenecks as consumers slowly attempt to scan the items and decide on a payment method, as well as locate coupons.
Additionally, at the majority of retail establishments that sell petroleum, food, general merchandise, and other consumer products and services, a variety of traditional forms of payment are accepted, including cash, check, credit card, and debit card payment. Unfortunately, there are security and handling costs, fees, charges, and losses associated with each of these forms of payment, not to mention bottlenecks created by the slow payers.
For example, where cash is an accepted form of payment, associated costs and losses normally include the cost of the cashier being hired, trained, and supervised; accepting cash; giving back change (including too much change); pocketing money; and end-of-shift or other audits. In addition, attendants who accept cash may worry about cash shortages and may operate under the threat of being fired for such shortages.
Credit and debit card payments include various costs. For instance, costs to the vendor include cashier costs, capital outlays for equipment and software, chargeback fees, card network fees, and rejected or bad card (e.g., Visa®, MasterCard®, etc.) fees.
The acceptance of checks includes many similar costs and fees, as are associated with cash, as well as additional costs and fees. For instance, additional fees associated with accepting checks include third party check verification and guarantee fees, losses due to insufficient funds, collection costs (e.g., administrative, managerial and legal), cost of attendants accepting checks, inconvenience of slow lines due to customers preparing checks at the checkout stand, and adding check amounts for deposit slips.
Therefore, in general, consumers have too many devices (e.g., phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), keys, and wallets), too many cards, and too many devices/cards to present at a point-of-sale (POS). Consumers spend too much time in checkout lines waiting for their payment to process or the payment processing ahead of them in line. Consumers' desire simpler, faster, more convenient, and more flexible methods of payment and access to their loyalty points, rewards, and/or coupons.
Accordingly, what would be advantageous are systems, methods, and computer program products that would further reduce or eliminate the monetary overhead associated with the acceptance of traditional payment methods, allow for the payment of multiple purchases at a time, and/or consolidate purchasing information into a manageable and convenient format for record keeping purposes. Therefore, there is a need for a system and method for quickly paying for items without directly accessing one's personal bank account during every single transaction, and without paying with cash or check or credit.